Democrats accuse X of profiting from Israel-Hamas misinformation, violent content

More than two dozen Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday accused X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, of failing to curb and profiting from misinformation and violent content related to the Israel-Hamas war.

In a letter to X CEO Linda Yaccarino and owner Elon Musk, the lawmakers voiced concerns about the social media company’s “ongoing failure” to enforce its policies on “the promotion of misinformation and hateful, violent, and terroristic propaganda videos” since the outbreak of the conflict last month.

“Given X’s major cuts to content moderation staff over the last year, it appears that X has willfully permitted, and benefited from, the illegal spread of terrorist propaganda,” the lawmakers said. “Such behavior from one of the world’s most widely used social media platforms is wholly unacceptable.”

The letter’s signatories included Reps. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), Katie Porter (D-Calif.) and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).

The letter pointed to two recent reports from the Tech Transparency Project and Institute for Strategic Dialogue highlighting examples of X Premium accounts, as well as non-X Premium accounts, spreading violent content from the Palestinian militant group Hamas. 

Notably, X Premium, the paid subscription service that replaced Twitter’s traditional blue check verification system, provides users with “prioritized rankings in conversations and search.”

The lawmakers also suggested that there are “clear indicators that X is profiting from the spread of Hamas’s terrorist propaganda” through the monthly subscription fees it collects from the X Premium accounts posting such content, as well as the ads displayed in replies to posts.

They also accused the social media company of benefiting financially from subscribers who have promoted false and misleading content about the Israel-Hamas war.

X has been repeatedly criticized for apparent content moderation failures. The company is also currently facing an exodus of advertisers over a pair of reports from Media Matters for America that accused the platform of placing ads for mainstream brands next to pro-Nazi and white nationalist content.

Musk, who also faced backlash last week for appearing to endorse a post promoting an antisemitic conspiracy theory, followed through on threats to sue Media Matters on Monday. He alleged that the liberal media watchdog group manipulated the algorithm to produce its reports.